Digressions on Kaidan
by Scutter
Summary: A self imposed challenge to see how many ficlets I could write starting with the same line. Kaidan's line is 'Kaidan's foot was itching'. Some ficlets are serious, some are silly, some are romantic. They don't all occur in the same universe, and they're not necessarily in chronological order.
1. Trapped

**Digressions on Kaidan**

This is a little self-imposed challenge due to a case of writer's block and extreme boredom, to see how many ficlets I could write starting with a single premise. And, as my foot kept itching this morning for no apparent reason, I went with 'Kaidan's foot was itching'. Some are serious, some are silly. Not all of them take place in the same universe, and they're not necessarily in chronological order. Enjoy.

* * *

**Trapped**

Kaidan's foot was itching. What was worse was that said foot was currently trapped under a large concrete block, dislodged from an unstable building by the harvester that had just flown off. And shortly, it was likely that the itching would stop, but only because the blood flow to his limb was being cut off.

"Hold still," Garrus advised, assessing the damage. "Shepard? How you holding up?"

"Fine," Shepard grumbled, shaking dust off his head and gravel out of his armor. He scrambled out of the hole he had been swept into by the falling debris and made his way cautiously over to Garrus. "Shit… Is it broken?"

"Don't think so," Kaidan replied, trying to stay calm. Aside from the fact that he was trapped, there were also the reaper forces still swarming the ruins around them. "Doesn't hurt enough to be broken." That, and the fact that the most irritating thing about being trapped was that his foot was itching and he couldn't get his boot off to scratch it.

"Think we can lift it off?" Garrus asked, and from his tone, Kaidan already knew the answer was no. He couldn't see exactly what was pinning him from here, but a cursory shove with his biotics had produced absolutely no result whatsoever, so it had to be big, whatever it was.

"No," Shepard said with a sigh. "Shit…"

"Husks!" Kaidan shouted suddenly, and even from his fallen position he managed to get his gun pointed the right way, taking out three husks while Garrus and Shepard took care of the rest. And then, once the dust settled, they regrouped around Kaidan and the massive concrete slab.

"What if we move some of the rubble from beneath him," Garrus suggested, looking over the pile of rocks carefully. "If we can create a little space, he should be able to wriggle the leg out."

Kaidan tried to flex his muscles, just to keep the blood flowing. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed, not keen on staying there much longer.

And so they set to work, dragging rocks and scraps of metal away, always careful not to injure Kaidan with a stray jagged edge… and ten minutes later, Kaidan looked around, after managing to free a short pole that had become snagged on his armor… only to see that, in his efforts to crawl beneath the slab and reach Kaidan's leg, Shepard's face was now poised only an inch or two from his groin.

He tried to suppress the laugh, but it burst out anyway, drawing the attention of both his companions. "What?" Shepard asked, looking round… and then immediately noticed what was at eye level. A most undignified snort sounded as he hastily turned away again.

"How is this funny?" Garrus asked, standing at a short distance and scanning the area for more husks.

"It's not," Kaidan replied, biting his lip to try and keep from chuckling. And damn it, but now that he'd noticed, his groin was getting in on the act, and he was only grateful that the armor prevented anyone from noticing his reaction.

And then suddenly Shepard tugged a chunk of rubble out of the way, and Kaidan felt his leg slide loose.

He dragged himself out from under the slab and sat up… then suddenly began tearing at his boot, unclipping the buckles, tugging it off.

"What's wrong?" Shepard asked urgently, freeing himself from the tunnel he had created. "Sprained? Cut? Bruised?"

Kaidan yanked the boot off and immediately set to scratching the sole of his foot like crazy. "Itchy," he said, not bothering to be embarrassed at the disbelieving look on Shepard and Garrus's faces. Their laughter echoes through the ruins, while Kaidan paid no attention. Scratching his foot felt so divine, he was willing to put up with being laughed at.


	2. Wounded

**Wounded**

Kaidan's foot was itching. It was an odd sensation, a disconnected sensation, while the rest of his body felt like it was floating. He heard a strange sound, the hum of a machine, but it wasn't like the throbbing hum of the Normandy's engines. He tried to open his eyes, but found he couldn't. Tried to move his arm to reach down and scratch his foot, but found that neither arm nor foot would move. Hmm. Odd.

He tried to remember where he was. The last thing he remembered was… Mars. Questioning Shepard about Cerberus. For some reason, he felt a deep regret about that, like he'd made a mistake that would take years to correct. And then they'd been fighting Cerberus soldiers. And then…

And then what?

Where was he, anyway?

"Kaidan," a voice said, and he thought he recognised the voice. "God, I nearly lost you…"

The voice seemed to feel the same way about him as he was feeling about Shepard. Loss. Longing. Regret.

"I need you to recover. The galaxy needs you. You're a damn good soldier, and I… I need you."

The itch faded away, leaving Kaidan feeling loose and ungrounded. What had happened to him?

"Fight, you hear me. I need you to fight, to come back to us."

He was fighting, trying to open his eyes, trying to get his cold, stubborn fingers to move, but it seemed to be a fight he was losing.

"Don't die, Kaidan. That's an order."

Footsteps retreated, and Kaidan realised he had been left alone. But he was good at following orders, and if that's what it took to see Shepard again, to earn himself the chance to look into those vivid blue eyes and apologise for everything he had said, for every doubt he had harboured, then fight was exactly what he would do.


	3. Comfortable

**Comfortable**

Kaidan's foot was itching, and he sighed, determined to ignore the minor irritation. He was far too comfortable at the moment to bother with such small problems. He was lying on the sofa in Shepard's citadel apartment, which was nice enough all by itself – the chance to lie on a sofa and forget about the rest of the galaxy was a rare opportunity this late in the war. Soon they would be headed into the final battle with the reapers, the crucible nearly finished, the stage set for the greatest showdown in history…

But even more enjoyable that the simple act of lying on a sofa was the fact that Shepard was lying almost on top of him. Their legs were intertwined, Shepard's breath warm and even across his neck, and he was fairly sure the man was asleep. And when he was already getting so little rest these days, there was no way Kaidan was going to disturb him over a simple itch. He smiled to himself, feeling the slow inhale and exhale of air, Shepard's chest warm against his own… he flexed his foot slightly, hoping the itch would go away. It would be a shame to waste this perfect opportunity with such a trifling annoyance.

From the other side of the apartment, a faint 'ping' alerted him to a new message arriving for Shepard, and he resolved all the more firmly not to disturb his sleep. Whoever it was could wait. They only had a couple of days of shore leave, and until the Normandy was finished being repaired, there was little they could do to help the galaxy anyway.

Kaidan idly stretched his leg out, managing to rub the offending itch against the arm of the chair. Oh yeah, that felt good…

Shepard shifted slightly against him, and Kaidan froze. Willed him to go back to sleep. Nothing to see here, no reason to wake up…

Shepard sighed and nuzzled his face closer in against Kaidan's neck. Nudged his leg up against Kaidan's groin, and muttered something soft and unintelligible. Then he settled and drifted back into peaceful slumber.

Such a simple act, lying on a sofa, taking a nap. And yet, in such a war-ravaged galaxy as this, life as they knew it on the brink of extinction, it was also utterly profound.


	4. Old

**Old**

Kaidan's foot was itching. He shifted around on the chair, bending over, leaning heavily on his cane so as not to take a dive headfirst into the floor. He managed to grab his sandal and pull it off, then set about scratching the itch with gnarled fingers.

"What are you doing?" Shepard asked, limping slowly into the kitchen. Wrex, their pet varren was on his heels, a faint 'yip' demanding food, and Kaidan craned his head around. Yes, sure enough, it was 6pm. Dinner time for a hungry varren.

"Scratching my foot," he said, aware that he was making the exercise look like a contortionist's Saturday night performance. Okay, so he wasn't as flexible as he used to be. But, decades on, after a life spent running and fighting and being blown up, was it any wonder his body was rebelling against the simple act of bending over?

Wrex, however, took the close proximity of Kaidan's face as an invitation, and Kaidan suddenly found himself the recipient of a most enthusiastic tongue. He batted the varren away with his hands, quite forgetting his rather precarious position, and suddenly found himself toppling forward off the chair.

Strong hands grabbed his shoulders, Shepard moving surprisingly quickly, despite his advanced age, and Kaidan was pulled back upright. Shepard fetched the cane from the floor and handed it to him with a smirk.

And Kaidan couldn't help but grin back. Age had made his husband even more handsome, his hair fully silver now, his hands worn, but strong, his back still straight, his eyes still that remarkable blue, even if the face that bore them was creased with lines, both from happiness and worry.

And then Shepard leaned down and kissed him, a warm, chaste meeting of lips that spoke of familiarity and affection and slight sense of 'I just couldn't resist'. Wrex yipped again, and Shepard rolled his eyes, shuffling off to fetch a can of dog food. Okay, so varren weren't quite dogs, but their diet was remarkably similar, and Wrex had always been delighted when presented with a bowl of 'Lucky Dog Chunky Meal'.

The original Wrex had passed away six years earlier, and Bakara had brought them the varren pup, saying Wrex had bred it himself and had been intending to give it to them as a gift, before Kalros had finally made good on a thousand idle threats and crushed Wrex's truck, killing a dozen good soldiers along with him. Fortunately, Wrex's son had been raised to follow in his father's footsteps, and Tuchanka was now being governed by Mordin – Wrex had given in and allowed Bakara to use the name for a boy, when she'd delivered a son to him as his first child.

"Liara's coming to visit next week," Shepard said, as he placed Wrex's food bowl on the floor, and the varren dove right in, slurping, munching sounds filling the small kitchen, while Kaidan struggled to put his sandal back on, the itch now taken care of. "I think she's been feeling lonely, since Feron passed away."

"Is Ashley coming with her?" Kaidan asked. Liara's youngest daughter was only thirty, still learning the ways of her people from her mother, and it was rare for them to be apart."

"Yes, she is," Shepard confirmed. "She's fascinated by humans, and the chance to visit earth was just too good to pass up. Even if she's supposed to be in school."

Wrex finished his meal and let out a loud belch, looking pleased with himself. He licked his lips and wagged his tail.

"Time for a walk?" Kaidan asked, and the response was immediate, bounding leaps, excited yips, dancing in circles… but the exuberance quieted the moment Shepard clipped the leash to his collar. They were both too old to risk being pulled over by an overzealous varren, and Wrex had been trained early on to walk quietly and not pull on the leash. Once they got to the dog park, he could be let off to run, but until then, it was slow and steady.

Outside the apartment, Kaidan took Shepard's hand in his, threading their fingers together, comforted by the strong, firm grip in his own. Life had been hard on them both, and despite advances in medical care, they would both likely die well before their official expected life-span, from the extreme exertions they had put their bodies through in their earlier years. They had a few good years left in them, maybe even a decade or more. But life was unpredictable, precious, precarious… and so moments like this were not to be taken for granted.


	5. Temptation

**Temptation**

Kaidan's foot was itching. He deliberately ignored it and tried to concentrate on what Shepard was saying. The mission to Therum was coming up, and an impromptu chat around the dinner table had turned into a miniature briefing, and then a serious discussion on mission parameters and strategy. They were due to pick up a Dr. T'soni, an asari scientist… but Kaidan was having trouble paying attention to anything related to the mission. He was far too distracted by the way Shepard's fork disappeared into his mouth, those firm, lean lips wrapped around it, then the way it would slide out again, his tongue sometimes darting out to catch some stray fleck of sauce. And his mind wandered, imagining what else that tongue might be put to use doing.

Ashley was sitting beside him, Garrus beside Shepard, and he hoped that his firm attention on Shepard's face was being interpreted as concern for the mission, rather than wandering lust.

"…on our way from the drop zone," Shepard was saying, then he turned to Kaidan. "Alenko? What do you think of the plan?"

"Therum has a huge amount of volcanic activity, right?" Kaidan said without missing a beat. "So is the Mako designed to deal with those kinds of temperatures?" He'd gotten good at this, back in BAaT, watching Rahna out of the corner of his eye while he still managed to keep track of the lessons. And even if he missed a few details, the trick was to have a pertinent question ready to go. It implied he was thinking about the topic at hand, without him actually having to say much. And wow, he'd never have thought that he'd be 32 years old and still using the tricks from his teenage years to fool his superiors.

"It's environmentally sealed," Ashley replied, "and so long as we don't drive straight into a pool of lava, the heat shouldn't be a problem."

"Sounds good then," Kaidan said. "Dicey, but doable." Shepard's fingers were long and lean as they gripped his fork, almost artistic, if administering death and destruction could be considered an art form. That itch on the sole of his foot started up again, but he didn't want to take the time to fuss with it. That meant he would miss out on precious moments of Shepard-watching, when there were few enough minutes left in this meeting as it was. In his down time, Shepard tended to stick to his quarters when he wasn't in the CIC, which made it extremely difficult for Kaidan to fuel his errant crush.

"Alright," Shepard said finally, standing up and picking up his tray. "Get a good night's sleep, everyone. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

And then he was gone, striding off on those powerful legs… and Kaidan managed a quick glance or two at his ass, without being overly obvious about it, as he finally bent down to tug off his boot and scratch that damned itch.

"I wonder what T'Soni's going to be like," Ashley wondered aloud. "I've never met an asari before. I hear they're really beautiful."

Who cares, Kaidan thought, with a final glance at Shepard as he disappeared around the corner. The asari were all female, from what he'd heard. An odd development for a species, in evolutionary terms, but it didn't matter to him either way. His attention was firmly fixed on a specimen of the decidedly male variety.


End file.
